By Black Star News
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
A South Carolina man has been charged with a hate crime, in Richland County, for shooting at a Black man, who was jogging on July 17th, in the Spring Valley area, where he lives.
On Thursday, Jonathan Felkel,33, who also lives in Spring Valley, was arrested and charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and violating the county’s new hate crime ordinance.
The new hate crime ordinance is a misdemeanor which carries a penalty of $500 dollars or up to 30 days in jail. However, because Felkel was also arrested on weapons charges he potentially faces a stiffer penalty.
Richland County is the first jurisdiction in South Carolina to pass a hate crime ordinance. Still, the State Of South Carolina and Wyoming are the only two states that do not have a state hate crime law.
After firing at the Black jogger, Felkel allegedly said, “keep on running boy.”
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department say that Felkel made several statements that amounted to him wanting to “strike fear in the victim due to his race.”
In part of his statement, Felkel said, “So I went down there and I seen a man standing in the bushes, it was a Black man in a white shirt, just standing out there at 4 in the morning, and I saw him there and he was by himself so I was really going to do something…”
On Friday, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said that the “suspect just saw a Black man running in the neighborhood, said, ‘I’m going to shoot him, And that’s what he said. That’s from his statements, is that he was shooting just cause he was Black.”
Friday, a judge set Felkel’s bond at $1 million, along with a $1,100 bond on the hate intimidation charge.
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